1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to management of image contents and, more particularly, to a technical field of digital motion pictures.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, image processing apparatuses such as an HD (Hard Disc) recorder and a PC (Personal Computer) having the function of recording image contents-data provided via a communication infrastructure such as the Internet and a broadcast infrastructure, and reproducing the image contents-data in accordance with intention of a user are being spread.
Image processing apparatuses having the function of automatically erasing recorded contents-data in order to effectively use recording capacity of a built-in recording medium have been proposed (refer to, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Nos. 2001-43168 (page 4, FIG. 1) and 2002-344879 (page 4, FIG. 2)).
The conventional image processing apparatuses, however, employ a configuration of automatically erasing contents-data from the oldest recording date/time or reproduction date and time irrespective of the intention of the user. Consequently, in the image processing apparatuses, there is the possibility that contents-data to be erased is uniformly erased irrespective of importance of the contents-data to the user, so that it is very disadvantageous and inconvenient.